FamilyLife Today®

Dave Wilson: Be hospitable. The part of a life well lived and part of being his people is where you love the stranger, love the alien, be hospitable. The New Testament where the Greek word for show hospitality is philoxenia, which means love of the stranger. Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Ann Wilson: And I'm Anne Wilson and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. So over the years, we've probably had quite a few people live with us in and out. How's that been for you?

Dave Wilson: You had to bring that up. You're laughing cuz Tell the listener why you're laughing. Go ahead. I'll just let you express this.

Ann Wilson: I wanted you to express it.

Dave Wilson: Well, it was always a wonderful thing to invite somebody. They usually lived in our basement that we finished and had their own living space. But after a period of time, I got a little frustrated. Let's just say that.

Ann Wilson: Why is that?

Dave Wilson: It cramped my life. Yeah, and it's a bad way to introduce the topic that, you know, we're going to encourage listeners to do, but we've got Don Everts back with us. Don, you're a pastor, you're a dad, you've written this book on research and how to develop spiritually vibrant homes.

Ann Wilson: Yep. Yes.

Dave Wilson: So first of all, let me say we love last two days having you on here. Welcome back to Family Life Today.

Don Everts: Yes. Great to be with you likewise. It's fun to think about these things together.

Ann Wilson: It is.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, and one of the reasons obviously we're bringing this up, and you can remind our listeners, but you know, as you studied

Don Everts: Yeah. Yes.

Dave Wilson: spiritually vibrant homes and homes that say what were the commonalities that made them spiritually vibrant? You found three things.

Don Everts: Yep.

Dave Wilson: Messy prayers you call them, loud tables. We've already talked about those two, and if you don't know what those words mean, then we're not going to tell you. You go listen. And I'm trust me, those two conversations are going to change your life. But then the third one I didn't see coming.

Don Everts: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: You know, open doors is what you call it.

Don Everts: Yep.

Dave Wilson: It's sort of a little bit what we're talking about, but explain what that means.

Don Everts: Yeah, we didn't see it coming either. You know, when you do research like this, you go in with some hypotheses. We think we're going to find this, you know. We did not think we would find that one of the commonalities that corresponds with more vibrant faith is that households extend hospitality, that there are people in and out of their household on a regular basis every month.

Ann Wilson: Some people just said, oh no.

Don Everts: I know. I know. I know. And there are going to be some people, you know, cuz I'm about to get like crazy excited about hospitality. So let me just let me just qualify it by saying sometimes a household is not in a place, a healthy enough place to like throw open the door.

Ann Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.

Don Everts: Sometimes there's dysfunction in a home, and you got to that's what you need to focus on and all that.

Dave Wilson: And it also doesn't mean you have to come and live in our basement.

Don Everts: Exactly. You know, exactly. Exactly. And there are levels of how how wide you can crack the door, you can open it a little wider, or you can just take the door off the hinges. So there's different ways people can do it. So I just want to qualify that.

Ann Wilson: Yeah, that's true. And at the same time, we're saying your house doesn't have to be perfect. Like it doesn't have to be the perfect house with the perfect decor, with the perfect meal.

Don Everts: Oh yeah. Yeah. That's right. That right. This was the surprising one, friends. This was surprising. Now it made us go back into the scriptures, and then we repented and said we should not have been surprised about this because it turns out God knows what he's talking about, and he calls his people, Old Testament and New Testament to be hospitable, that part of a life well lived and part of being his people is where you extend hospitality. So we shouldn't have been surprised. We were. And what the research told us is that the more you have people in and out of your household, the more vibrant the faith is of the people living there.

And it's not necessarily that you have Christians coming in and out of your household. It could be non-Christians who are coming in. It could be people who are coming in because they're a tutor, and right? You could be paying them to come in and tutor your a kid, or it could be grandparents coming in. It could be boyfriends and girlfriends. The more open your doors, the more hospitality there is, the more vibrant the faith is. And what shocked me in this because the researchers at Barna, they never talk about causality. They'll never say A causes B.

They just say there's a correlation between A and B. This one

Ann Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.

Don Everts: they talk different.

Ann Wilson: Really? Why?

Don Everts: This one because they said it causes it. There's something about having more people in and out of your household that actually doesn't just correspond with but it affects and increases faith formation.

Dave Wilson: No, okay. So what is it? I mean, what is it about having people in and out?

Don Everts: Well, that they don't know. They don't know.

Dave Wilson: Well, you know. What would you say?

Don Everts: Well, I have my thoughts. I have my theories about it. So here's an interesting thing. One of the things that they found is there's something about the dynamics of a household that has people in and out of it all the time, right? Where sometimes the effect is like say you have a strong Christian from church who's coming over and they're having a great influence on your family, but maybe you have someone needier, non-Christian who's coming in. But you're still navigating them as a household. Like you're living out your faith and your relationships in a way that your whole household is seeing that and being a part of that together.

And so the world coming in and hanging out and you as a household navigating that and your kids watching you do that that grows your faith.

Ann Wilson: It's so interesting because we can feel like in this culture we need to protect

Don Everts: Absolutely.

Ann Wilson: our family. We need to have us under the roof, put up the walls, protect us, especially with non-Christians. This doesn't even mean Christians. This means just your door is open and people are coming in.

Don Everts: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. It's interesting. So in the New Testament, it turns out we we're called again and again and in the Old Testament love the stranger, love the alien, be hospitable. The New Testament where the Greek word for show hospitality is philoxenia, which means love of the stranger. And I would say xenophobia, fear of the stranger is more what we can be tempted by. And I'm going to close off my kids. I'm going to close off my household from the evil world out there. And I'm not saying like don't be mindful obviously about how you interact with culture.

That's not what I'm saying. But what the research says is that the more insular a household is, the more there's a risk factor for not having vibrant faith.

Ann Wilson: That's amazing.

Don Everts: It's it's I mean, everyone was shocked at this. And it's again why we went back to scripture to see what they were saying. If you break it down, it's interesting. So some household types struggle with this more. So the ones who are doing well with this are like households with kids are doing way better. Uh this is another thing we found. The presence of kids in a household increases spiritual activity. Isn't that fascinating?

Ann Wilson: Yeah.

Don Everts: Because we tend to think like when you're having kids, you're like, man, if I my kingdom for a quiet time. You you know, my house is crazy. I don't feel but actually having kids present it increases Get this. The research says that houses without kids in and out of them 68% of those households interact in the Bible together. But if you have kids in a household, it goes up to 87% of them.

Dave Wilson: Really? If you have a household without kids, 83% of those are doing some kind of prayer together. If you have kids present, it goes up to 95%. And then talking about your faith, those households without kids 88% do it, 95% with kids. Because kids get people in and out of your household. You're interacting, you're doing things with each other. So there's something about just kind of going live as a household and having other people in. I can tell you so Bosetti was a dear friend of ours where we lived when I was writing this book.

She's from Nigeria, and she's a single woman in our church. And we just we love her, and we she was in and out of our house all the time. And I loved having meals with her because she had such a different life experience, and my kids were hearing about that. And we had my mom and stepdad move in with us 8 years ago. And so we were raising our kids with grandparents in the home. And my stepdad was weird. And yet to be able to dinner table and to be able to say, hey Buzz, will you pray for our dinner tonight?

Here's the deal. That was risky cuz you never knew what he was going to say. But the kids, they're getting to interact with someone else's faith other than just their parents. Where we live right now, it's regular that we have Muslims and Hindus in our house on a regular basis cuz we are right on the campus. There's all these international students. My son, who's an high schooler, is getting to see us interact with people from different contexts, and he's getting to see us just like be really open and like build trust and build bridges of trust to gain a hearing.

And then when they're curious, he's seeing us how we talk about our faith and how we don't talk about our faith.

Ann Wilson: That makes me think of 1 Thessalonians 2 8 which says, so being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives because you had become very dear to us. That is exactly what we're talking about.

Dave Wilson: That's it. It's our lives. And we we did a whole other research project on spiritual conversations with non-Christians and and how that goes and what's helpful and what non-Christians like and all that. And one of the things that it shows us is that I mean, the first key is gaining a hearing. You have to build trust. So our kids are seeing us not just, you know, why do you pray to thousands of gods as a Hindu and what makes you think they're real? Why are cows holy? You know, they get to see us go, hey, you know, it's good to see you and to love them and talk about life and So we're like modeling that sort of thing.

One of the tools we have in this chapter on hospitality on our open doors is a household map. We encourage people to like map out their household, their core household, like who lives with you in your household and then the extended household. So like my kids' friends who are over all the time, they're actually a part of my household as the Bible understands households. The average household size in the Old Testament was 50 to 100 people.

Ann Wilson: What?

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Because household for them they didn't have this idea of a nuclear household. It was us and then my uncles and then the cousins and the grandparents and then the other tradesmen and then the traveler who's coming through town who's staying with us. In Genesis where you have Jacob's household is actually listed 70 people are in his household. Now that doesn't mean we need to like live in communes and all that sort of thing, but like to understand like a whole household includes your nuclear or your core household, people you live with, and all these other people.

And when you start thinking about that, so when I was doing the research, I started thinking about it and I was like, well, Bosetti, she's a part of my extended household. And just thinking about that made me more mindful of that relationship. My kids same thing. You know, cuz my wife is a great cook. All their friends are coming over, right? They're a part of my extended household. What's my role to try to influence them and try to love on them and be an encouragement for them? It changes the game of how you're thinking about things to like map out.

And we even created a cool little cartoon video to help people like figure out like well, if the grandparents live really far away, but they zoom every week, are they a part of our household? Like there's ways of thinking about that. But the more mindful we are of kind of this larger orbit, the more active we're going to be with that. And the research tells us it causes our faith to grow.

Don Everts: But what do you say to the parent that is hearing this and they're gripped with fear?

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

Don Everts: Cuz often we think and you use the analogy of the submarine versus the rescue ship, we think submarine. I want to lock our family down. I want to

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Mhm. Yep.

Don Everts: lock all the doors.

Ann Wilson: Yeah. Put a bubble around us.

Don Everts: You know, I got to protect my kids. There's bad influences out there and they may have to be exposed to them at school or in the public square, but in my home I can control so I'm not letting any of that in my home. You're saying almost the opposite.

Dave Wilson: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, again, there may be occasions and there may be contexts and situations where that is the right thing to do. And I and I really want to acknowledge that.

Ann Wilson: Right. Right. And we're not saying too like we're protecting our kids, I 'm thinking

Dave Wilson: Exactly.

Don Everts: Totally.

Ann Wilson: in terms of like any kind of abuse or they're not alone or

Don Everts: Exactly. Exactly. But I will say this. The default assumption that insulating our kids or our households from the world around us will necessarily grow our faith is false. It's kind of like cul-de-sacs. Cul-de-sacs are great, right? And they're really fun. But the image that we have

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

Don Everts: is that they're safer because it's our little pocket right here. My kids, you know. Well, it turns out traffic-wise cul-de-sacs are statistically more dangerous than regular streets. That doesn't mean don't live on a cul-de-sac, right? I mean, you just have to be wise. It's they're different. That's why they're not quite as safe cuz people aren't used to navigating them and all that. So it's kind of similar in the sense of we just assume if you circle the wagons, my kids' faith will grow or will be stronger. It's just not necessarily true. There's something about hospitality that if your family has occasions I'm trying to get to an answer to your question.

So I'm qualifying my way to it.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Right. So if people have fear of that, if there's something real to fear, then fear it.

Don Everts: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: But if the fear is this like general xenophobic like I need to protect my kids' purity above all else, default thought that that's what it means to be a faithful believer, then I would challenge that both through what the scripture calls us to and what the research tells us that actually there's a way I did campus ministry for 18 years, okay? And some of the people who struggled most to launch as believers, right? And and to own their faith and to know how to navigate the world and and be salt and light some of the people who had the hardest time with that were the ones who they grew up in a little Christian bubble and they had been so protected that their muscles didn't develop.

Ann Wilson: Mhm.

Dave Wilson: And so we want more for our kids, you know. What do what do we want for our kids? Do we want more for them, for them to be safe and happy? We were talking about, you know, like your goals for your kids. Like I want you to be used and to be a warrior for God and to thrive in this world and all that. That protection alone actually will not result in that probably.

Ann Wilson: Mhm.

Dave Wilson: So to someone with fear, I would say just crack your door a little bit. Even a way of doing that just in the prayer life of your household start praying for people that are outside of your household. Like that's even safe. You don't even have to really open the door to do that.

Ann Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. You're just praying.

Dave Wilson: You're just praying for others, but you're inviting those in your household to be more mindful of people who aren't in your orbit.

Ann Wilson: I would add this too, Don. I was thinking about this when we wrote our parenting book, to know who you are, to know what your passions are, to know what you enjoy because I'm thinking of Dave. He may not like have some person come in and have this face-to-face really deep conversation immediately, but what Dave is a genius of is playing.

Dave Wilson: Mhm.

Ann Wilson: I yeah.

Dave Wilson: He is so good at like, hey, let's play a game. Let's make up this game. Let's play basketball, football. So he's in our front yard, and I would say too he's the only dad outside.

Don Everts: Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

Dave Wilson: And these kids he is a magnet. When they kids were little, even like 10-year-old, 12-year-old boys, they would knock on the door and they would say, can Mr. Wilson come out and play every time? And he's fun. He's funny. And so maybe if you're a dad or a mom and you think, I don't feel as comfortable of just going to this deep spiritual conversation

Don Everts: Yes. Yeah.

Dave Wilson: just who are you? Maybe you're a gamer.

Don Everts: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: You know. So I think Dave

Don Everts: Use your gifts as a magnet.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Use your gifts. And here's the reality. The research told us you know, the three things, messy prayers, loud tables, open doors. The research also told us there are two catalysts that make all three of those happen more, food and fun. Those are the two catalysts.

Ann Wilson: Oh, that's good.

Dave Wilson: And so having fun, interacting with people, doing things creates an atmosphere, draws people in which makes those other three things more likely to happen. So start there.

Don Everts: Mhm. Yeah. One of the things you say under this part of your book, you know, crack the door a little bit, open a little wider is start a small group.

Dave Wilson: Yep, that's it.

Don Everts: You know, maybe even have a Bible study in your home. We did that. And so our kids and we weren't even thinking about it when they were 7, 8 years old. They're watching our neighbors walk in our door, sit around, open a Bible and have spiritual conversations and arguments.

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

Don Everts: You know, disagreements about these topics

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.

Don Everts: that's a really good thing. We didn't even realize it, right?

Dave Wilson: But they're seeing it's not just, well, my parents go to church.

Don Everts: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: They must care about the Bible cuz they even do it at home.

Ann Wilson: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: They even have friends who are over doing it. You know, for for those who are listening and who are like, I'm no good at any of these things and I'm a new Christian or you know, how do I do this? Here's a real cheater. You guys want a pro tip here? Someone at your church that you're just like, man I want to be like them or like I'm a parent. I want my kids. Man invite them over.

Don Everts: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: Have them over, have your kids sit at the table with them and and just tell them, hey, tell us your testimony or you know, tell us something about your faith. Let them influence you. You know what I mean? Let them rub off on your kids. That's just a little cheater. And guess what? They're going to rub off on you too.

Ann Wilson: Yeah. Mhm.

Dave Wilson: So

Don Everts: Hey, here's a question that I didn't see directly addressed in the book. What about your marriage?

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

Don Everts: How important is a good marriage for your kids in a spiritually vibrant home?

Dave Wilson: Yeah. I I mean, it wasn't the you know, the focus of the of the research, but That's right. So so we don't have research on that, but I mean, something so key because I mean, that's the furnace of everything in the household for a married for a couple household, right? So for a household where you do have a husband and wife the health of that and by health I don't just mean like it's pristine and it's always, hello, honey, and things are perfect, but like So we have we have a saying in our marriage and in our household that my wife made up, mess up, fess up.

So one of our like rules as a household, one of our like Mhm. kind of virtues is you mess up, you fess up. And so for our kids to see Wendy and I reconcile with each other is just huge.

Ann Wilson: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: So like the health of the marriage, but that doesn't mean like that we're perfect, but that they see us communicating, that they see us mess up, fess up with each other is huge, uh is key for all the reasons, right? And you're just smiling because you're like, yeah, I mean, it

Don Everts: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: it's so key to all of this. And so that's why, you know, if someone's marriage is on the rocks and all that, like maybe don't start with hospitality. You got to focus on that. Like that's the next right thing. Get good there.

Don Everts: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: So

Don Everts: It feels like in some ways uh when I hear you say that, Don it's like I can't really lead or model for my family a spiritually vibrant home. All the things we talked about, messy prayers, loud tables, open doors unless it's an overflow of my own personal walk we got. It's the same thing with the marriage. It's like, man, if we're not working on our marriage first,

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.

Don Everts: we don't have a lot to give to our kids cuz you're frustrated and you're angry and you're But if you're working on that and I'm not saying it's perfect, we said that very well.

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

Don Everts: But man, that's where my energy's going first. I'm going to meet with God myself and out of that are going to come prayers and conversations and

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.

Don Everts: hospitality, but if it's not first real in me and in my marriage

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

Don Everts: good luck with it ever being extended to your family. And after all these years of marriage, I know you pretty well.

Ann Wilson: Okay. Then you should have no problem playing spouseology with me.

Don Everts: Why do I suddenly feel nervous?

Ann Wilson: Spouseology is Family Life's couples trivia game with questions that will have you guessing, laughing, and maybe learning a few things about each other.

Don Everts: Yeah. And you can play just the two of you for date night

Ann Wilson: That'd be fun.

Don Everts: or invite some friends over and find out which couple really knows each other best. Get spouseology at shop.familylife.com.

Dave Wilson: We did do some qualitative research, some interviews with people. So there are a number of people. I mean, it's not I can't give it a statistic, but you know, where you have one spouse who's a believer and the other who's not.

Ann Wilson: Mhm.

Dave Wilson: And so that was a part of the research as well. And here's the good news that I want to say is that for for the one who is a believer who's sitting there and like maybe they're listening to this and they're like, well, that'd be great if, you know, if my husband was a believer or like cared about his faith

Ann Wilson: Right.

Dave Wilson: the good news is the kind of spiritual coaching, the kind of initiating all that stuff even works. I mean, it can work. Is Is it more powerful if the two are like lock step with each other? Absolutely, unquestionably. But there are people listening who aren't in that situation for whatever reason.

Ann Wilson: Right.

Dave Wilson: And the good news is like they can be a spiritual coach, they can initiate the things, they can be creating a spiritually vibrant household even if there's like a hold out in the household. Does that make sense?

Ann Wilson: And still they still are having an great impact.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Absolutely. And that's why it can be messy. And that's what that's what we found. Doesn't have to be pristine. Doesn't have to be a husband and wife holding hands, leading a devotion. It can be a messy thing that is happening, and even that helps grow the faith.

Don Everts: Hey, Don, would you be willing to pray a messy prayer?

Dave Wilson: Yes.

Don Everts: For the family that's listening, mom or dad that you mentioned earlier that feels like, wow, we're we're not vibrant, we're dormant,

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

Don Everts: but we want to get out of that. Would you pray for them?

Dave Wilson: Yeah, let's pray.

Don Everts: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: Father, I thank you for the ways that your word shines a light into every area of life including in our households. And I just intercede on behalf of those who are listening, Father, who are maybe feeling conviction or shame or guilt or confusion or excitement but not knowing what to do. And Father, I just pray that you would that your love would surround them that they would be uplifted and inspired by the reality that you care about the health of their household and everyone in it even more than they do and that you are a God who's pursuing all of them.

And I pray, Father, that you would use some of the scriptures we've talked about, some of the insights from research to call them to one small step. Would you even right now as they're listening bring an image to mind of one little thing that they could do out of faithfulness and even if it's out of fear? I'm just bold to ask, Father, that you would even give them one picture right now of a step that they could take and give them the courage to do it, Father. We thank you that you care about households, that one of the agendas of your Holy Spirit is to be moving in our households and helping them grow stronger and heal.

So thank you for your activity that precedes our activity even in the household. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Ann Wilson: I just want to remind our listeners that our vision for families at familylife.com is to follow Jesus to impact children, parenting, marriages not just here, but around the world. We can't do that without you.

Don Everts: Yeah, and that's why we do what we do, but you probably don't know this. We have hundreds, even thousands of financial partners, people that pray for us, but also say, I don't want to just pray. I want to be a part of this ministry, and I'm going to give part of my income every single month to Family Life to help this ministry impact the world. So you can be a partner with us. You in a sense you're impacting others just through our voice and through this program.

Ann Wilson: And we need you.

Don Everts: Yeah, and if you're sitting there thinking, man, I didn't even know they had monthly supporters like that, yes, we do. And they literally are partners. We are partnering together to change the world for Jesus Christ. So here's how you can do that. Just go to familylifetoday.com, click on the donate button, and become a partner. All right, great day with Don Everts. And again, his book is called The Spiritually Vibrant Home, The Power of Messy Prayers, Loud Tables, and Open Doors. And you can get your copy by clicking the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com.

Ann Wilson: Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.